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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LordVyreth" data-source="post: 1488695" data-attributes="member: 9626">The sound-barrier breaking arrows, but the saner versionAfter defeating the elementals, Quercus healed the seriously injured, especially Tal, and then went to look at the machinery in the corner.  There was some writing on it, but it wasn’t in a language that any of them recognized.  They did see a switch, however, and an arrow that was pointed at a multi-hued arc of color.  At the moment, it was pointing at the very bottom of green area of the switch, and there were also tiny yellow and red areas on the far right side of the arc.  The party discussed what to do with it.“I think we should flip the switch,” Tsine began.  An eager Flix nodded his head in agreement.“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Tal responded.  “I can’t read the letters, but the way they are written suggest that it’s trying to tell us something important, like it was a warning or something.  We can always try it later, but we should learn more about it first.”“If we wait a day, I can use magic to understand it,” Quercus volunteered.Raz frowned.  “But do we have a day?  What if we can’t close these secret doors up when we’re done tonight?  The kingdom would probably step in and investigate, and we might lose our chance.”Dane had an idea.  “Well, what about this?  We go back to the main library, and try to remove that first sword from the knight.  If it closes the doors again, and we can find a way to close that first secret tunnel, then we know we can be a little more cautious about all of this, and try the pump later.  And either way, we should try that northern secret door before experimenting with weird machines.”They agreed to this plan, piled back into the elevator, and were relieved to see that the first secret tunnel already closed itself while they were gone.  They tried removing the sword from the armor, and as they hoped, the secret doors closed up again.  Safe to explore again, they replaced the sword, and then went towards the northern door.  This area also appeared to be made out of metal, and it was extremely well crafted.  There wasn’t a crack, hole, or seem to be found between the metal plates.  The path forked again here, going left and right, but when they went left, all they found was a shaft leading down.  Quercus flew down to investigate, but all there was at the bottom was a long metal tunnel going south, which led in a dead end.  He flew back to rejoin the party, and they went east, where they found a staircase going up.  Cautiously, Dane and Raz climbed up the stairs, but just as they reached the top, the entire stair collapsed into a ramp, and spikes rose up at the bottom of the stairs!  Raz barely caught himself in time, but Dane was sent tumbling back down, where two of the spikes penetrated his armor, catching him painfully in the hip and leg.  Raz couldn’t help but chuckle a little as he jumped safely off the stairs, causing the trap to reset.  Dane just glared at him as Tal used a healing wand to repair the wounds, and then Flix carefully examined the steps.  A few moments later, he rejoined the party.  “I found the trigger.  There’s a step that will cause the whole thing to shift.  I could try disabling it if you want.”Dane just shook his head.  “Nah, we know it’s there now.  We can just step over it.  Why risk setting it off again.”Everyone decided that if he trusted Flix’s assessment, there was no real cause for concern, and carefully climbed the stairs again.  The found themselves in a larger chamber, which was mostly wooden and elaborately furnished and decorated.  The only real items of note, however, were a huge stone statue of a dragon, and a transparent window in the north wall.  While everyone went to look at the window, Rudyard stared up at the dragon.  He gave it a cynical look.  “I bet that will animate and attack us at some point,” he said sarcastically.  He then joined the rest of the group at the window.  There was another shaft on the other side of the window, but it was made of stone.  Two bright fires lit up a plaque with a message, but the rest of the shaft was shrouded in darkness.  Quercus used his ability to create light at will to try lighting the rest of the shaft, but was rewarded with nothing.  Tsine investigated.  “There is some strong magic in the shaft.  I think it’s causing the darkness.  We need stronger light magic than what we currently have to cut through it.”  With their other options now gone, the party read the message on the plaque:The second guard comes from a wealthy, noble family.His family was so well trusted that no one suspected him of betrayal.When he proved their loyalty misplaced, he was justly betrayed himself.An invader crippled him with a stab to the leg, and he died in agony.Such is the fate of one who would betray house Balidar’s honor.This wasn’t too hard a puzzle to figure out.  Many of the armors had shields or other items that contained heraldry, and while only Dane lived in the area and had reason to see Delaspie heraldry regularly (and he was no expert,) they were in a library, after all.  They took a few hours to investigate, found a book that described the symbols of the Balidar house, found an armor with a similar symbol and a suspicious hole in one leg, and pierced it with the second sword.  A door opened up on the south wall of the second floor of the library as a result.  Acting on a hunch, Flix checked out the elevator again, and as he suspected, the “B2” button lit up this time.  After a brief discussion, they decided to start in the second floor basement, so they piled into the elevator again, and pressed the “B2” button.The east and west doors opened up this time.  The west door connected to the corridor at the bottom of the shaft they found earlier, but the east door led someplace new.  It also was made of metal, and while the corridor itself ended about twenty-five feet from the elevator, it had another branch midway down on the south side, which had a door.  Leading the way, Dane carefully opened the door.  There was another room on the other side.  It was also made of metal, was about twenty-five feet long and wide, had a strange machine in the center of the room, and four orbs connected to the two side walls.  Carefully, Quercus and Dane led the way into the room, with the others closely behind.  Unfortunately, they followed a little too closely, for as soon as Dane got a little too close to the machine, the four orbs detached from the walls, sprouted little legs and arms, and charged at the party!  One went for each of the front-line fighters, while the others went for the rear of the party, which unfortunately consisted of Raz and Tal.  The ones in the front did little to affect Quercus and Dane, due to their thick armor, and even Raz was able to avoid the blows.  Tal wasn’t as lucky, however, and one of creature’s claw-like hands slashed at his face, giving him a deep gash.  Worse, a surge of electricity ran through the creature’s arm, sending him reeling as his heart skipped a few beats.  The party responded, with all four of the endangered party members attacking their new targets, while Flix moved to help Tal, Tsine stood in the middle to try and target the machines from long range, and Rudyard started to help Raz.  However, as they started attacking the creatures, they learned they had another problem.  In addition to generating electricity when they attacked, the creatures apparently channeled electricity naturally, shocking the heroes every time successfully damaged the monsters.  This was no problem for Quercus, of course, who gave the creature a nasty first blow.  However, as he attacked, he noticed another problem.  The creatures were using some sort of field, which slow their attacks, reducing the effectiveness of their weapons.  Both problems gave Dane trouble, which was shocked both times he successfully attacked his Sheen.  Tal, perhaps fortunately and perhaps not, missed his target completely, and Flix couldn’t hit as well, though Tsine helped them out by firing an arrow of acid into it.  Meanwhile, Rudyard and Raz attacked their machine, and got more shocks for it while still failing to do any real damage.  It was then time for the machines to get revenge.  Quercus’ and Dane’s machines only gave telling blows, and due to Quercus’ immunity to electricity, even that had little effect.  Raz wasn’t so lucky, as the creature ripped into him twice, giving him heavy wounds.  But Tal was the one who suffered the worse.  The creature pierced him twice in the just, catching a lung once.  He gave once silent gasp, and collapsed, barely breathing.  But it was only a temporary setback for the party, as Quercus and Dane finished their foes off, and Dane’s sheen was apparently out of electrical charges, for he suffered no further injuries as he finished the thing.  The same thing happened when Rudyard and Raz finished their sheen, and Tsine’s magic missiles destroyed Tal’s attacker.After again healing from their wounds, the party investigated the machine.  It had three holes one the side, which look like they could fit some ball-shaped device in them.  There also was a lever, and a glass-like tube leading from the machine into and through the ceiling.  Again, the party decided to leave the machine be for now, and went to the last secret doorway currently unexplored, up on the second floor of the library.  This room was made of metal as well, but it wasn’t as spotless as the earlier corridors.  In fact, they are filthy, and covered with mold of various colors.  It also was very cold.  Flix choose to take point, fearing a trap, but only learned that when he neared the other end of the hallway, it got so cold it was literally painful.  Teeth chattering, he fled back to the party, and Quercus chose to take the lead.  His heavenly blood warmed at all times, so the cold was meaningless to him.  He reached the other side of the hallway easily, and found a strange metal pool, which was filled with water and a number of tiny metal balls.  There are also a number of holes in the floor and ceiling.  He tossed a few balls experimentally into the holes, and had the party check the room with the cylinder machine to see if any ended up there.   The didn’t, but the size of the holes and the size of the orbs looked nearly identical, so Quercus grabbed a few and decided to check if they would fit.  As he grabbed them and held them for more than a few seconds, he noticed that they radiated a fairly strong electric charge, but again he had little to fear from that.  However, before he could get halfway to the machine room, the charge disappeared, and after placing the orbs in the holes and pulling the lever, nothing happened.  The party pondered this.  They were out of options, so they had to find someway to get the orbs there faster.  Finally, Tsine had an idea.  “What about archery?  And that shaft we found earlier?  How about this?  You grab an orb, Quercus, and then dash to give it to me.  I fire it across the length of the library, and then someone catches it and drops down the shaft.  Someone else fast can fire it down the hallway to the elevator, who dashes to the machine room, and drops it in?”Crazy as that sounded, it also sounded possible, so a plan was made.  Quercus was official orb retriever, and Tsine was ready to fire the first arrow.  Tal, despite a growing fear of electricity, would grab the orb, and drop it down the shaft.  Raz would fire it from there, and then Rudyard would catch it and carry it into the machine room.  Dane, being heavily encumbered, and the short-legged Flix chose to just stay out of the way and give moral support.  Though it proved painful to everyone involved but Quercus, the plan was a success, and soon the machine was lit up and humming, as if it was not active.  Rudyard pulled the lever, and was so surprised that the fell backwards when a beam of light so bright it was blinding flashed up through the cylinder.  Flix, who was observing this, commented, “Wow, that thing is bright!  Wait, maybe it can be seen from that window room!  Get everyone together!”The party quickly gathered, and met back underneath the stairs.  They were just about to climb the stair to check out he window when they heard roaring and stamping from above them.  Something big was up there, waiting for them.  “I told you so!” Rudyard bitterly announced.OOT Notes:  It wasn’t a good set of fights for Tal, which sadly is one of the only things I remembered about the fights originally.  I also remember it taking forever for the group to figure out the orb and machine problem, including the solution that was used here.  But I might have gotten the order of the rooms they investigated wrong.  They never figured out what was making things so cold, either, so what can I say?</blockquote>

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